Al-Zaidi takes the intelligence service himself after dismissing its chief without explanation
The prime minister has assumed direct control of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service following the removal of Hamid al-Shatri, two weeks after parliament completed his cabinet. No reason for the dismissal has been given.
Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi has taken personal charge of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service after the removal of its director, Hamid al-Shatri, during the week of 26–30 October, The National reported on 30 October. A statement from al-Zaidi’s office framed the decision as a response to the “current challenges” facing Iraq and said it was “linked to a broader government plan aimed at strengthening state sovereignty.” No public explanation has been offered for al-Shatri’s dismissal, and The Files found no second outlet carrying the appointment inside the window. The fact of the move is on the record because the prime minister’s office put it there; the reason is not on the record at all. Al-Shatri was appointed under the previous government of Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
The timing sits against a cabinet only just finished. On 15 October parliament voted on more than a dozen appointments, filling vacant posts and confirming three deputy prime ministers, completing the government five months after it took office in May, Al Jazeera reported. Among those confirmed was Laith al-Khazali as deputy prime minister, a figure EPIC’s Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor describes as US-designated; Al Jazeera’s own account noted parliament had approved a deputy premier “who is under US sanctions.” The same vocabulary the prime minister’s office used for the intelligence portfolio — state sovereignty — is the vocabulary the government uses for the weapons-monopoly file, on which al-Zaidi has promised a road map with timetables “not exceeding 30 June 2027” and has published nothing.
Assessment: Read this as consolidation rather than administration. A prime minister who holds the intelligence file himself holds the one instrument that reports on his coalition partners, and he acquired it in the same fortnight a US-designated figure entered his cabinet as deputy premier. Two things to distrust: the sovereignty framing, which is the prime minister’s own and is doing work on at least three files at once; and the single-outlet status of the appointment itself, solid as the statement is. The questions that decide whether this matters are whether the arrangement is interim, and whether the Coordination Framework signed off.